


i'll always be here

by poppyrainstorm



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Mari is amazing, Snapshots, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 01:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11521974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyrainstorm/pseuds/poppyrainstorm
Summary: There’s a face staring up at her from the blankets. The face is slightly squished, and it has dark brown eyes, the only feature that she can see for sure. Her mother looks up, and smiles at Mari, who is still confused, staring at the eyes, which are staring back at her.“Mari,” Her mother says, “This is Yuuri. Your brother.” Her face softens as she says Yuuri’s name. Mari wrinkles her nose. Brother?Or: Mari and her relationship with Yuuri through the years





	i'll always be here

Mari Katsuki is six years old when her brother is born, and she sleeps right through it. 

When she wakes up, her parents are gone, and Minako is downstairs instead, her eyes remarkably clear, digging around in the their small kitchen. When Mari comes downstairs, Minako looks up and smiles brightly. 

“Good morning, Mari!” She says, and Mari stops at the doorway, to look around. Realizing that her parents are not here, she waves to Minako. 

“Where-,” She begins, but Minako cuts her off, waving off her concerns. 

“They went to the hospital,” She replies carefully, “We’ll see them later.” Mari nods, but she’s still a bit concerned. The hospital is a while away, and hospitals usually mean horrible things. Minako is nice, she supposes, and she promises that they’ll go to visit Mari’s parents later. They do, but the entire car ride down, Mari is worrying. 

The trees are all bare, their branches sticking out like sharp fingers, and Mari shivers away from them in the cold November wind. Minako doesn’t seem phased by the weather, despite her fairly light jacket, but Mari is cold with red cheeks by the time they enter the hospital. As Minako talks to the woman at the reception desk, Mari fiddles with her red scarf, and tries not to think about her parents. 

The woman stands up, and Minako goes back to Mari to lead her away, down a dark hallway with several doors on each side, until they come to a different unit of the hospital. 

The woman leads them to a different door, and leads them both inside, where Mari’s parents both are. Her mother looks tired, and is holding a bundle of blankets. Her father is beaming and keeps looking at the bundle. Mari stays back as her mother catches sight of Minako, and begins to talk to her. Mari sneaks forward, slowly, eyeing the bundle warily. 

Her father catches sight of her halfway there, and takes her hand, picking her up and putting her on his shoulders, knocking his glasses askew, so that she can see what’s inside the blankets. 

There’s a face staring up at her from the blankets. The face is slightly squished, and it has dark brown eyes, the only feature that she can see for sure. Her mother looks up, and smiles at Mari, who is still confused, staring at the eyes, which are staring back at her. 

“Mari,” Her mother says, “This is Yuuri. Your brother.” Her face softens as she says Yuuri’s name. Mari wrinkles her nose. Brother? 

She didn’t ask for a brother. 

It seems she’s getting one anyway. 

***

Mari Katsuki is twelve years old, and having a brother isn’t quite as bad as she’d thought. 

Yuuri is sweet, and he always smiles. He’s sensitive, and Mari has taken it upon herself to be his protector. She knows his friend Yuuko, and she’s nice too. 

He will sometimes come home with tears in his eyes, talking about how the other kids made fun of him, and Mari scowls at the door and takes him back to the hot springs, where he calms down and breathes in the steam and relaxes. Mari stands by, watching for any offenders to show up, daring them to show up, to show their ugly faces here, because they hurt her brother. 

This is also when her brother begins to develop an interest in skating. 

Every day he goes down to the skating rink, and comes back with stars in his eyes, talking about how Minako and Yuuko are teaching him. Their parents are thrilled. 

Mari is not. 

She knows he already gets teased. She also knows that this is just one more target that he’s painting on his back, and she hates it, hates it, hates it. 

But she smiles and supports him anyway, taking him to the rink when their parents are out, and smiling whenever he pulls off a new move. 

It’s not perfect, and there are still days when Yuuri comes home crying, but Mari soon realizes that the skating rink is an escape, where he doesn’t need to be worried about other people. She realizes that he really loves it. 

It’s not perfect. But it’s pretty damn close. 

***

 

Mari is eighteen when her brother comes home talking about Victor and everything begins to change for good. 

He’s clutching a magazine, and his eyes are starry. He holds it up for her to see, and she takes a look, removing the cigarette from her mouth with two fingers and waving away the cloud of smoke. 

There’s a picture on the magazine, of a young man with long silver hair tied back, and his arms raised. His eyes are closed, and it’s clear they caught him mid-motion, because the edges of the picture are a bit blurry. The other picture that’s in the magazine is one of the same man flashing a peace sign at the camera and grinning wildly. His hair is down and it falls down to the middle of his back. Mari blinks several times at the photos, and then she looks at Yuuri. His face is glowing. 

“This is Victor, Mari!” He says, excitedly pointing to the photos. 

“Who?” She asks, looking at the photos again. He’s good looking, but he looks like the kind of person who knows it, and she looks at Yuuri again. 

“Victor Nikiforov!” Yuuri tells her excitedly. “He’s a real figure skater! He’s competing in the Grand Prix this year!” 

“He is?” Mari looks at the photo for the third time, trying to see clearly what her brother sees in this boy. 

“Yeah!” Yuuri replies, “He has a dog! Mari, can I get a dog?” 

“I don’t know,” She says, slightly baffled, “You’d have to ask Mom.” 

Yuuri runs off, still clutching the magazine, and starts yelling for their mother. Mari goes back to the counter, because she still has to work, and takes a long drag off of her cigarette, watching her little brother. 

A week later, they’ve got a new pet, and Yuuri insists on naming him Vicchan. Mari raises her eyebrows again, but doesn’t say a word, and thus Vicchan is the name of the new poodle. Yuuri holds him up and tells Mari that he looks exactly like Makkachin, Victor Nikiforov’s poodle. Mari smiles at him, and rubs the poodle’s fur, and ignores the TV in the background that’s shouting about Victor’s quadruple flip.

***

 

Mari is twenty four when Yuuri decides to move to Detroit. 

She drives him to the airport, because their parents are crying too much to do much more than hug him and tell him how much they’ll miss him. Yuuri’s glasses have already fallen off twice because of the hugging, and he keeps reassuring them that he’ll be fine. Mari sits with her back straight and drives, trying to focus on the most direct route instead of how much she’ll miss him. 

When they reach the airport, Yuuri climbs out of the car, and Mari rolls down the window. 

“Good luck,” She says, and Yuuri grins at her. “You’re going to do great.” 

“Thank you.” He replies, and then he reaches through the window and gives her an awkward hug. Mari hugs him back fiercely, not wanting to let go, but knowing that she has to. When he lets go, she ruffles his hair affectionately. 

“Bye, Yuuri.” She says. 

“Bye, Mari.” He returns, and then he’s gone, running towards the doors. Mari is reminded of the first time she heard the name Victor Nikiforov, six years ago, when he showed her the magazine. 

Then he’s disappearing behind the doors, and Mari and their parents are alone in the car. Their parents are sobbing, and Mari digs out a pack of cigarettes, and puts one in her mouth, using her tie dye lighter to set the end of it aflame. She takes a long drag on it, and pulls the small travel pack of tissues out of her bag and tosses it into the her parents’ hands before pressing down on the gas and getting out of the airport parking lot. 

When they drive home, Mari goes into her brother’s bedroom and stares at the posters of Victor Nikiforov, trying to understand what’s so captivating about him. The room seems bare and lonely without Yuuri’s cheerful presence, and she leaves after a few more moments. 

***

 

Mari is thirty when Yuuri comes home.

She remembers last year, and she wishes she didn’t, because she remembers the phone call that her parents got, and she remembers hearing his voice shaking. She remembers him sounding like he was going to break down. 

This year is the year that Victor Nikiforov enters Yuuri’s life. This is the year that Victor shows up in the hot springs with Makkachin, and Mari is painfully reminded of Vicchan, who died just the year prior. 

This is the year that Yuuri will win silver at the Grand Prix. 

This is the year that her little brother gets engaged. 

She wants nothing more than for his life to slow down a little bit, but he moves to St. Petersburg that year, to be with Victor, and Mari is stuck watching him again from behind a car door, unable to follow him. 

***

Mari is thirty two when the doctors tell her she doesn’t have much time left. 

She’s always smoked, always had the pack of cigarettes and her tie dye lighter, but she never thought it would really affect her. That is, not until she’s sitting in the doctor’s office with the man in front of her telling her about her lungs and showing her the images and Mari looks at him in blank shock. 

She doesn’t tell Yuuri. He and Victor are still engaged, and he’s working hard. He keeps telling her that this will be the year. 

Mari goes home and looks at his old room again. She looks at the posters, and the neatly made bed with a two inch thick layer of dust. Yuuri has been gone for two years.

She takes out another cigarette. 

***

 

Mari is thirty six and living on her own when her brother shows up on her doorstep, crying in the winter rain. 

She doesn’t say a word, just ushers him inside and hands him a towel. He’s wearing a coat that’s heavy with rain, and his eyes are red and swollen. 

She gets him a bowl of soup, and he eats, still crying, and that’s when Mari realizes something. 

His hands are trembling, slightly, and one of them is clutching the soup spoon, and he looks like a wreck, even as he tries to stop the tears with his other hand. Mari realizes too late that on neither hand does she see the gold ring that he got six years ago. 

The ring is gone. 

He’s come back home. 

He’s not carrying a suitcase and he’s crying. 

Mari feels the anger gather in her stomach, because all these things add up to one possible solution. 

Victor Nikiforov broke his heart. 

Mari wishes that she could fly to St. Petersburg right this instant and punch Victor in the face. 

It’s funny, because she’s met the man, and he seems kind. He seemed like the kind of person who would be good to her brother. Yuuri loved him, and Mari knew it-he talked about Victor all the time, and most of his phrases began with ‘Victor and I’. 

“I’m s-sorry,” Yuuri says, curling into the towel, and looking miserable. His glasses have teardrops studded across them, and he takes them off, setting them on the table. Mari reaches across the table to squeeze his hands. He looks down at them and the tears begin to fall again. 

Yuuri reaches into his pocket and pulls out the ring. Mari’s a bit astonished that he still has it, but she supposes it’s not the strangest thing. 

“Don’t be.” She says, coming around to hug him, hard. Yuuri is still crying, and she can feel the tears in the fabric of her shirt as he clings to her. She remembers when he was younger and was teased, and she thinks that this is a different kind of hurt, one that she can’t beat, because the reason for it is in Russia. 

She hugs her little brother while the rain beats out a steady pattern on the roof.

 

The next day, Victor Nikiforov shows up on her doorstep, while Yuuri is still asleep. She pulls the door open, and he’s standing there, wearing a dark brown coat, and looking unusually somber. 

“Mari,” He says when he sees her. “Is Yuuri here?” 

Mari freezes for a moment. Victor Nikiforov is standing on her doorstep and looking for her brother. Victor Nikiforov is the reason Yuuri came home yesterday, a sobbing mess in her home. 

Mari draws back her hand, fingers clenched, and punches him across the face, hard. 

Victor shouts as her fist connects with his cheek, solidly, leaving a red mark that she hopes with a viciousness that surprises her will bruise. 

“You bastard.” She says vehemently. “Don’t come near my brother.” 

Mari slams the door in his face, and storms upstairs. 

Yuuri is stumbling down the stairs, wearing his glasses and his pajamas, and rubbing the sleep off of his face. 

“Who was downstairs?” He asks sleepily. 

Mari looks at him and then remembers Victor standing on the doorstep. 

“Nobody,” She says, “Just the mailman.” 

 

Of course, the idiot has the nerve to show up again the next day, but this time, Yuuri is in the kitchen when it happens. 

The incessant knocking begins and Yuuri’s head jerks up from where he’s cutting up a leek for dinner.

“I’ll get it,” He calls, walking towards the door, and Mari is already running across the room to try and block him, give him a warning, anything, but it’s too late. 

Yuuri opens the door and it’s Victor again. He has a new bruise across one cheek and Mari smiles grimly from her corner of the room. Yuuri is staring, and his eyes are watering, and Mari begins to walk over, but decides better of it at the last minute, and hangs back. 

“Mari,” Yuuri says after a brief moment, voice shaking slightly. “Could you leave us alone for just a moment?” 

Mari nods, and leaves, not taking her eyes off of Yuuri as she walks up the stairs. 

She goes into his temporary room, and goes to the bed, lying on her back and wondering where her cigarettes are. Running a hand through her partially bleached hair, she sighs, and looks at the ceiling, wondering if she could get away with punching Victor again. 

A few moments pass, and she can hear Yuuri’s voice from below her, and then Victor’s, and then the door closes and there’s silence. Mari jumps up, and heads down the stairs quietly, trying to gauge how bad the damage was, and if Yuuri has started crying again. 

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she sees Yuuri, and he is crying, but he’s kissing Victor, and it seems sort of desperate, and sort of sad, and definitely the kind of thing that’s too intimate for her to witness. 

Mari heads back up the stairs, a silent ghost of a person. 

***

Mari is forty years old when she’s hospitalized. 

There’s almost nobody left to contact, and when they ask her if she wants to make a phone call, she almost says no before she remembers Yuuri. Picking up the phone and dialing the number stings a little, but not as much as she knows explaining to Yuuri will be. 

“Hello?” She can hear Yuuri’s voice, a little breathless, like he ran through his house to get to the phone. “This is Yuuri.” 

“Hello,” She croaks, and coughs into her palm. “It’s Mari.” 

“Mari! Are you okay?” She can imagine his eyebrows furrowing as he holds the phone loosely. 

“No.” There’s no point in lying about it. “I’m in the hospital in Hasetsu. Something happened with my lungs.” 

There’s a loud noise, and then static. 

“Hello?” 

Nothing. Mari puts the phone down and lies back against the hospital pillows, yawning and coughing halfway through the action. Her lungs feel like they’re trying to forcibly eject themselves from her body. 

The nurse rushes in and hands her a glass of water. Mari downs it, and the coughing relents, but she still throws up. 

She wonders if she’ll die alone, and then curses herself for the morbidity of the thought. 

 

Yuuri shows up three days later, and he brings his husband. Mari is lying on the hospital bed when they come in, and Yuuri’s eyes are filled with tears. 

“Mari, what’s going on, Mari, you were coughing over the phone, are you alright, Mari please, _please_ talk to me, Mari.” The words come out in a jumbled mess, and Mari wants to hug him, but she can’t. 

“I’m fine.” She says, but she isn’t and they both know it. Victor hangs off to the side of the room, and Mari dimly remembers when Yuuri first mentioned the name Victor. 

“You’re not fine!” Yuuri says, and he breaks down and begins to cry. There are tears streaming down his face, and dripping off his chin. Mari knows how she must look. 

For a moment, the only sounds in the room are the beeping of the machines that she’s hooked up to and Yuuri’s crying.

“What did the doctors say?” Victor asks, coming forward tentatively. 

“Nothing useful.” Mari says quietly. 

Victor’s eyes darken, and Mari knows he knows what she means. 

Yuuri insists on staying with her through the night, and Mari stays awake and watches the stars as Yuuri sleeps in a chair outside the room with his head on Victor’s shoulder. 

The moon is full and bright. 

Mari coughs, and then coughs again, harder, harder. Blood spatters up on the clean white sheets. 

She can hear the door opening, and Yuuri rushing in, and she thinks that she won’t die alone. 

She falls back against the pillows, and she sees Yuuri’s face and he’s hugging her tightly and begging with her to stay awake, stay awake, Mari, please. 

The beeping relents, and the numbers drop. 

Mari Katsuki closes her eyes, and with her brother holding her in a hospital bed with the moonlight shining down, she drifts away.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my mind for ages.  
> Mari is an A+ sister  
> come visit my [twitter](https://twitter.com/poppyrainstorm) or my [tumblr](https://poppyrainstorm.tumblr.com)  
> EDIT: I DIDN'T TAG CHARACTER DEATH IT'S THERE NOW I PROMISE I'M SORRY


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